In the recent years, there has been widely used audio visual (AV) equipment of a new category such as hard disk recorders and digital versatile disc (DVD) recorders, and the like.
Since a remote controller normally belongs to each of these equipments, a new purchase of equipment will increase the number of remote controllers in the home. For example, the remote controller of a television receiver, a video tape recorder (VTR), or audio equipment, and others are already present in a general household.
Additionally, personal computers mounting a TV program playback function and a music playback function, or a variety of appliances such as air conditioners and lighting equipment show a tendency to increase the number of the type that is operable by a remote controller. Thus, some households may have a considerable number of remote controllers.
Therefore, a variety of techniques enabling to manage centrally so many remote controllers in an integrated manner have conventionally been proposed.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-16990 discloses the technique that enables to add the function to a remote controller by downloading display screen information of the remote controller and, based on it, displaying remote controller image.
Also, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 6-319177 discloses the technique that enables to easily detect control target equipment if a plurality of equipment is so controllable by one remote controller.
However, the above-mentioned techniques suffer from the problem that control target equipment is limited to equipment that can communicate directly with a remote controller by infrared or the like.
In the case where besides equipment capable of communicating directly, equipment connected to that equipment can also be controlled indirectly with use of a remote controller, a user can anticipate that a variety of equipments are controllable more efficiently and quickly. This is particularly noticeable in the case where first equipment that can be controlled directly by a remote controller, and second equipment that can be controlled indirectly via the first equipment, are connected by radio or the like, and placed at different rooms.